The Test

Seven

The building is dark and cold, and I can feel a chilly wind coming from somewhere above me, even through the thin material of my t-shirt. I look around in bewilderment, noticing a slim staircase, made, from what I can see, of black glass, sweeping up to the second floor in a graceful arc on the right side of the room. I walk over to it on silent feet, careful to let my boots make no noise on the black granite floor, smooth with subtly reflective flecks of precious stone in the tiles. I head on up the staircase, treating each step (through which I cannot see the floor below, for which I am grateful,) as a land-mine that must be passed with care. When I reach the top of the staircase, a wide mezzanine stretches before me.

I step across it on still-silent feet and stop at the sight of a long corridor stretching into the shadows on the left side of the platform, lined with dark grey doors.

The first door on my left catches my eye. I put my hand tentatively on the palm pad and push. The door swishes to the side, disappearing into the wall. I enter cautiously, not knowing what to expect. I relax a little, though, as I come further into the room, since it looks exactly like the room where I took my Test. This thought immediately piques my interest and arouses my suspicions, though, and I am no longer relaxed. I never should have let my guard down. Just because a place looks familiar, doesn't mean it is.

I look around at the room, assessing, checking for differences. I walk over to the desk where the screen rested once, but it's not there now. A breeze blows through the room, coming from the door through which I can feel that same sharp wind caressing my skin, and see the sharp angles of the buildings on the streets lit only by a pale, stark moon, sending ghostly light down to illuminate my path. My path to what, I have no idea. I will have to find out.

I take a single step towards the door.

The breeze, the wind, dies suddenly. The door slams. The fluorescent bulbs flicker out. I am left in darkness with no tangible escape. The door will merely be an outline now, impossible to find.

An impossible Test.

But, I reason, I found the first one easy, I can find this easy, too.

And the objective, the goal of the test, that is easy. That much I know.b

I have to find the door.

But knowing what I have to do is the easy part. And while it may seem simple in theory, completing this test will be difficult. A dark room, a virtually invisible door.

I push past the table, knocking it over in my haste to reach the door. I know it is futile, but still some part of me wants to try.

Needs to try. Has to try.

I reach the door all too fast, and end up pushing against the solid ceramic tile of the wall, unconsciously throwing out my hands to steady myself. The motion brings no clarity to my situation. The room is still dark; the door is still gone. I am still trapped. I let out a low moan of helplessness, again pulling on my hair in frustration. I slump back against the wall in the darkness, almost ready to let my fear and helplessness overwhelm me.

But then, shifting my weight unconsciously and hitting the table with my leg, an idea strikes me.To get the door to open, I should recreate my Test. How I should do that, though, is temporarily beyond me.

I right the table quickly, stumbling over to the only other door leading out of this room. This one is not embedded into the wall, and next to it is a light switch. It was never really the door I was going for, anyway That's not the point of the test.

The light switch causes the lights above to flicker to life, and the room before me spreads out in all its bare, empty glory. Well, empty of anything useful.

I sit down at the table and wait for the screen to appear like it did that day. It does, after a few seconds, but does not bear the words I thought it would. Instead, it says:

Name: Ariana Blackthorn.

Score: 74%.

You have passed the Test.

My new, better score leads the second door to open out of the wall, leading again to that sterile white corridor, as it had done on the day I took my Test - only, then, it was the other door. I realise then that the point was not recreating the test to get the door to open, or turning on the light to appraise my options, but to conquer my fear and come up with a plan in a crisis, even when all else seems to fail.

Because it didn't fail.

I'm free.

Lucas

He watches her in the holograph, watches as fear and desperation clouds and contorts her face. He watches as she runs to nowhere, so caught in the simulation that she has no idea he is even still there, leaning against a rack of weapons, engrossed himself in watching her.

He himself does not notice as a slim figure joins him in the barn, coming to stand next to him. Viola.

"Hey, Luc," she whispers. He does not answer; he is too absorbed in watching. She does not comment on his absurd fascination with the way she moves, with the way her expression of concentration looks on her face; the way sweat rolls down her brow and his eyes hungrily track it until it is absorbed by the material of her clothes.

She does not comment on the way he watches greedily as the light falls on her hair, the dying evening sun painting her locks a deep chestnut. For she knows it is not her he is watching; it is the girl in the simulation; it is her he is obsessed with; unhealthily so, though he will neither admit that to himself nor to her, and least of all to Anya.

He would no more admit his infatuation with Anya to Vi than he would to Anya herself, but Vi knows that. He would not dare admit that, to him, this mystery girl with chestnut hair and an instinctive grace, an uncanny ability to light up a room whenever she enters it, is fascinating. But he is sure that eventually, the fascination will fade. He will move on to something else, someone else. At the risk of sounding like a serial killer, that is. Although sometimes, at night, when he can't sleep, he lies the in the dark and thinks about nothing else but the light on her skin and the way she lights up when she sees someone she cares about.

When she sees him. Or Zach.

Zach. The name causes bile to rise in his throat, but he pushes it down, disgusted by his own apparent jealousy. He shakes his head in exasperation, looking up from the floor, where he had been staring vacantly for the last few seconds.

Viola finally catches his attention, his gaze lifting from the floor and meeting hers. "You like her, don't you?" She said, winking and glancing at him sidelong. "Go on, admit it," she cajoled, slugging his shoulder and speaking in a low murmur even though they both knew that Ana couldn't hear them talking, caught as she was in the hologram.

He sighs. "Yes, I like her. I'm her mentor. If I didn't like her, I wouldn't have volunteered to mentor her, would I?"

Vi laughs. "Maybe it's because you're her mentor that you like her. You seemed to hate her when you met." Her voice sounded mischievous, and her eyes glint with it.

He punches her lightly on the arm. "I don't doubt it."